The Book of Daniel is Unsealing - Focus on the Middle East and Prophecy!

People today are of the mindset that the
events of the Old and New Testaments all happened back in the "Biblical
days" of human history. They fail to grasp the awesome truth that we are
still living in Biblical days. They never ended. What will yet happen on the
face of this Earth in the years to come has already been prophesied and
penned in the Bible. There remain things written in the Bible, in both the
New an Old Testaments, that are yet to come to pass.

The Bible deals with the history of man's world from
the beginning, across historical time and into our present time and forward
until the very end of time as we understand it. You are living RIGHT NOW in
Biblical days. The great "I AM" of Exodus
3:14, who spoke to Moses from the burning bush, STILL IS and speaks to us
today through His written Holy Word and the Holy Spirit. And, today, that
ancient malignant spirit of Satan is also still whispering in the ears of
modern man, "Yea hath God said?" (Genesis
3:1)

Although the prophets and disciples have long since
passed from our world, what they wrote lives on just as relevant today as it was
in the day it was written. If you really trust the Bible, it can and will tell
you where we are today and what is about to come to pass in the very near
future, not just in the sweet bye-n-bye. We will now shift gears from, "In
the beginning" to the "Beginning of the end."

There is a second "gap" in the Old Testament aside
from the one in Genesis. That "gap" is the Church Age, the roughly 2000 year
period of time between the first and second advents of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That gap is hidden within the prophecies of the Old Testament, but
it can be seen there through what is revealed in the New Testament. Clarence
Larkin probably put it best when he explained that the prophets in Old
Testament days were only able to see the "mountain peaks" of prophetic
events (like the crucifixion, the Day of the Lord, and the final judgment),
but could not see the Church Age in the valley between the mountains. Here
is the chart from Larkin's book, "Dispensational Truth" that visually
illustrates this principal:

Prophetically speaking, we are living today on the
far side of the valley, time wise, and quickly moving up the mountain slope
towards the coming of the Antichrist and the great Day of the Lord; the end
times of God's dealing with the Jews, His chosen people.

Although 1948, the year when Israel became a state,
would seem a natural benchmark for the start of the latter times of Biblical
days, I believe a much better benchmark emerged in 1979 when the Iranian
Revolution catapulted the land of ancient Persia back onto the global
political stage.

The Iranian Revolution inspired an exponential rise
of Islamic fundamentalist sentiment against the west; an angry wind that
began to blow with increasing velocity across the Middle east and the larger
Islamic world. When the Islamic world saw that Iran could blatantly snub its
nose at the powerful west, and get away with it, others quickly
followed. The subsequent Iran/Iraq war, the rise of Al Qaeda and Osama Bin
Laden, the attack on New York on September 11, 2001, the Gulf Wars and the
wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan all directly or indirectly precipitated
from this seminal event. The Arab Spring uprisings in North Africa and the
Middle East and the increase in sectarian strife between Sunni and Shiite
Islamic factions across the Muslim world are all part of this equation. And
Iran is an active political driving force in this phenomenon.

Iran is Biblical Persia and, in retrospect, we can
now see that the emergence of Iran as a world power, and a modern-day
growing global threat, is prophesized in the book of Daniel. The prophetic
seal on the book of Daniel is unsealing right before our very eyes. The
Church Age is rapidly drawing to a close.

The Old Persian Empire encompassed the areas of
present-day Iraq, Iran, Syria, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Pakistan and also
occupied-present day Turkey, Palestine, northern Egypt and Libya around 500
B.C.

The Persian Empire figured most prominently in the
captivity of Israel in Biblical history and, as we shall point out, Persia
also figures prominently in future prophecy and the beginning of the "latter
days" (See Daniel 10:14).

It is no coincidence that the Middle East is a
powder keg, awaiting only the proper spark to explode; it is no coincidence
that radical Islam has become the global terror threat; it is no coincidence
that Iran is threatening to wipe the nation of Israel off the map; and it is
no coincidence that Israel exists as a nation, once again back in most of
the very same Biblical lands that God promised Abraham thousands of years
ago. None of this is coincidence; it is the fulfilling and unfolding of
God's Words and setting of the stage for the fulfillment of the coming
events written about in the book of Revelation.

During the days of the Old Persian Empire when
Israel was in captivity, the prophet, Daniel received many visions
concerning his people and Jerusalem, and what would happen to Israel in the
times before the end. God told Daniel that those things would be sealed
until this "time of the end." It is
written:

"But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and
seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and
knowledge shall be increased."(Daniel 12:4 KJV)

"And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the
words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end."(Daniel 12:9 KJV)

To begin to comprehend the context of Persia
(present day Iran) in the prophecies of Daniel, we need to start with the
vision of the "Ram" at the river:

"And I saw in a vision; and it came to pass,
when I saw, that I was at Shushan in the palace, which is in the province of
Elam; and I saw in a vision, and I was by the river of Ulai."(Daniel 8:2 KJV)

Daniel was in what today is southwestern Iran when
he had this vision. Persia is the context and focus of this vision.

"Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and,
behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two
horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up
last. I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that
no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver
out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great. And as
I was considering, behold, an he goat came from the west on the face of the
whole earth, and touched not the ground:
and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. And he came to the ram
that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto
him in the fury of his power. And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he
was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two
horns: and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast
him down to the ground, and stamped upon him: and there was none that could
deliver the ram out of his hand."(Daniel 8:3-7 KJV)

The Bible goes on to define the identities of this "ram"
and the "he goat" spoken of in this
prophecy:

"And he said, Behold, I will make thee know
what shall be in the last end of the indignation: for at the time appointed
the end shall be. The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings
of Media and Persia. And the rough goat is
the king of Grecia: and the great horn
that is between his eyes is the first king."(Daniel 8:19-21 KJV)

First of all, the Lord God reiterates that this is
an END TIMES prophecy; a yet future event. Then the Lord God identifies the
two horns of the ram as the kings of "Media and
Persia" which would roughly indicate the land area from eastern
Turkey and Iraq into Iran and eastward into Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is
no coincidence that the conflicts in these lands are the current focal
points of the daily news.

Politically speaking, Syria is currently siding with
the Iranians and their Hezbollah segregates against Israel. Turkey, which
used to be an ally of Israel, is now seen as sliding towards the Iranian
camp. Following the pullout of U.S. forces, Iraq is unstable and is
dominated by a Shiite government that is increasingly being drawn into the
Iranian sphere of influence. There is a building fault-line between Shiites
and Sunnis in the region, most notably precipitated by the conflict in
Syria. Expect to see the unexpected in this region in the coming years.

The king of "Grecia"
is a reference to the peoples immediately west and north of present day
Turkey, specifically, the regions around Greece, Macedonia and up into the
Crimea and present day Ukrane and the Balkan states. Some scholars interpret
this king of "Grecia" to be a generalized
reference to Europe and the western world. But, if we restrict our
interpretation to a more literal one, a somewhat startling prospect arises.
And the seeds of that prospect are found in the current European Union
economic crisis in Greece.

What would happen to Greece should the crisis there
deepen and the Greeks leave the Euro Zone? Besides defaulting on their debt,
and throwing Europe into an economic tailspin, such a possibility would
precipitate a political rift between the Greek peoples and Europe and a
shift into the Russian sphere of influence. There is a common strong
religious bond between the Greeks and the Russians because these regions are
bastions of the Greek Orthodox faith. And I am not talking just about Greece
or Russia, proper. This includes the Orthodox peoples of Cyprus, the Balkans
and the east European nations situated between Greece and Russia. There is a
strong enmity between the Greeks (Christian Orthodox) and the Turks
(Muslims) that goes back to the conquest of Constantinople (Istanbul) and
the rise of the Ottoman Empire. There exists the strong possibility of a new
political power block rising across this region and peoples, which would
become aligned against the west and Europe for economic reasons, and against
the Muslim peoples of Turkey and the rising Islamic forces to the east for
religious and political reasons. There eventually would emerge one leading
nation within that power block who could constitute the "he
goat" who will be moved to attack the ram and crush the empire. So,
in effect, we have a prophecy of a future 'Grecia' military
machine attacking and bringing down the future resurgent eastern empire of
the Medes and Persians. Certainly the winds of politics are blowing is this
direction. The recent Russian aggression in the Crimea and eastern Ukrane is
just another unfolding epsode in this story.

We are certainly living in the days before this
prophecy will be fulfilled, but we are also living in the times when the
prophecy is actually unsealing right before our eyes, so that we can
understand what is happening in this world and where all this is leading.
The Ram is rising, it is becoming "great" but the larger of its two horns is
yet to rise. Specifically, the lands of Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Afghanistan and
Pakistan are yet to fully join forces with the Iranians. It should also be
pointed out that these nations, although they are all predominantly Islamic
nations, are not Arab nations. These are different peoples than the
descendants of the Ishmaelite who inhabit the predominately Sunni Arab
nations to the south that are on the western shores of the Persian Gulf
(Arab Gulf) and in northern Africa.

Having said this, allow me to digress for a moment
and show why the prophecy of the "He-Goat" and the "Ram" is still future
prophecy, and not the description of a past historical vent, as many Bible
scholars argue. Proponents of the historical interpretation school (the
amillennialists) claim that this vision was fulfilled in the conquering of
Persia by Alexander the Great (about 330 BC). But does the Bible really
support that interpretation? Notice in the prophecy that the "he
goat" came from the West. Ok, so did Alexander the Great, but
Alexander's army touched the ground every step of the way there. The
prophecy says he "touched not the ground,"
and that part of the ancient prophecy could not be literally fulfilled (or
comprehended) until the invention of the airplane. What the prophecy seems
to be describing could be a massive airborne launched attack from the west;
the modern doctrine of warfare (i.e. fighter jets, bombers, troop
transports, and air and sea launched cruise missiles). The feet of attacking
troops will not need to touch the ground until they parachute in or make
marine landings.

There is a religious/political cultural line that
runs between the Greeks and the Turks; the peoples of the west facing the
people of the east; the predominately Orthodox Greek peoples against the
Turks and the Islamic peoples. It is no coincidence that the beginning of
John's visions in the Book of Revelation focuses on the western shores of
Turkey. That is the Biblical land of Asia Minor where the seven churches of
Revelation are located.

Are you starting to see the connection?

All of the seven churches of Revelation chapters 1-3
are situated along the western edge of Turkey. And the Aegean Sea between
Greece and Turkey is a geopolitical dividing line between the so called
lands of Christianity to the west and the lands of Islam to the east. The
Apostle John was on an island named Patmos (currently a Greek controlled
island), situated in the Aegean sea just west of the Asia Minor mainland,
when he saw his vision.

Daniel's visions are a complement to the visions of
John. The Middle East region is the future literal focus of the events in
the book of Revelation.

Also make note that all this must happen BEFORE any
of the 10 kings or horns of Revelation actually come upon the scene. In
fact, notice the wording of the last sentence in that prophecy:

"And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and
the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king."(Daniel 8:21 KJV)

That is, the king that leads the attack against the
kings of the lands of ancient Medes and Persians will occupy and breakup
this resurgent empire and establish himself as the next ruler in the region.
He will be the FIRST of the 10 kings of Revelation (See Daniel 7:24 &
Revelation 17:13). The rest of the kings are nations in the Middle East
region, not Europe.

Of course, all of this is just background to the key
focus of end-times prophecy; the nation of Israel and the time of Jacob's
troubles (see Jeremiah 30). The future Jerusalem will be the ultimate
"ground zero" of all geopolitical focus and the Temple Mount will be the
detonator. All present conflicts in this area of the world are but a
precursor to the main events that are yet to come to pass on the Earth
before the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. But, before the Lord
Jesus Christ returns, the Antichrist must appear on the prophetic stage.

When this person actually first appears on the
prophetic scene is not clear. In the book of Revelation, John says that one
of the seven churches, located at Pergamos, is in a city where "Satan's
seat is" (See Revelation 2:12-17). Since the Antichrist is Satan
incarnate, Pergamos may be where this "man of sin"
first emerges or establishes his power base. But the Bible is very clear in
telling us that when he is finally revealed to the Jews and the world for
what he really is, it will be in the future Jerusalem and in a Third Temple
yet to be built in Jerusalem.

"Let no man deceive you by any means: for
[that day shall not come], except there come a falling away first, and that
man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth
himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as
God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing
himself that he is God."(2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 KJV)

The Bible believer knows that, however all this
comes about, the still unbelieving nation of Israel will build a Temple on
the Mount in Jerusalem and re-institute Temple worship. And this temple MUST
be built before the Antichrist is revealed and before the Lord Jesus Christ
returns and destroys him and his armies.

Considering the decades of bloodshed and violence
between Israel and the Arabs, and the entrenched respective positions of
both the Jews and the Arabs concerning the Temple Mount and final status of
Jerusalem, one can only imagine the magnitude of any sequence of
geopolitical events that would bring this prophecy to pass. It WILL come to
pass sometime in the near future; a literal Temple will be built and it is a
prophecy you can 100% bank on coming to pass before the Second Coming of the
Lord Jesus Christ. How this will happen is unclear.

Israel claims Jerusalem as its eternal capital. The
Palestinians and the Arab world want Jerusalem too. Is there a compromise on
the horizon? One key to how this could come about may also be found in the
writings of the prophet Daniel. In future times, after that Temple is built
in Jerusalem, there is a prophecy about a "Holy
Covenant" already being in place for some time prior. Here are the
references:

"And he shall confirm
the covenant with many for one week: and
in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to
cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make [it]
desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured
upon the desolate."(Daniel 9:27 KJV)

"Then shall he return into his land with great
riches; and his heart [shall be] against the holy
covenant; and he shall do [exploits], and return to his own land."(Daniel 11:28 KJV)

"For the ships of Chittim shall come against
him: therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against
the holy covenant: so shall he do; he
shall even return, and have intelligence with them that forsake
the holy covenant."(Daniel 11:30 KJV)

"And such as do wickedly against
the covenant shall he corrupt by
flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do
[exploits]."(Daniel 11:32 KJV)

These passages of prophecy seem to indicate that
there will be some form of treaty or "covenant"
between Israel and their cousins in the Arab world. It could be over the
question of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount; a covenant between both sides to
share the Mount. The Jews build their Temple and are free to worship there,
while the Arabs are free to worship beside them at the Al-Aqsa and Dome of
the Rock mosques, with both sides respecting each other's religious claim to
the Mount. A farfetched idea? Not really! Look at what is said in the book
of Revelation about the Temple and the Mount during the Great Tribulation:

"And there was given me a reed like unto a
rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and
the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is without the
temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and
the holy city shall they tread under foot forty [and] two months."(Revelation 11:1-2 KJV)

Keep in mind that both Israel and the Arabs are
blood cousins, being the common descendants of Abraham through his sons
Isaac and Ishmael respectively. Both people's faiths are rooted in the same
Old Testament traditions, and they are both from common genetic stock,
although the Messianic line is through the bloodline of Isaac and Jacob (the
Hebrews), a fact the Arabs deny. And, politically, both of these people have
something else in common - both consider Iran a threat.

On a Bible doctrinal basis, both the Jews and Arabs
have one more thing in common (besides eschewing pork): Both their religions
deny that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that God came in the flesh in
the person of the Lord Jesus.

"And every spirit that
confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the
flesh is not of God: and this is that
[spirit] of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come;
and even now already is it in the world."(1 John 4:3 KJV)

"For many deceivers are entered into the
world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come
in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an
antichrist."(2 John 1:7 KJV)

Therefore, based on the authority of the Scriptures,
both the mainline Jewish and Islamic faiths of today (to say nothing of
other world religions and apostate "Christian" cults and sects who deny the
physical resurrection of Jesus and His Deity) are all under that spirit of
antichrist. It is not inconceivable that both the Jews and Arabs, indeed the
whole unsaved world, could find a common basis for religious unity under
that spirit (i.e. religions of works and ritual, not faith in the shed blood
of Jesus for justification before God).

Jerusalem is considered a holy city by three faiths;
Judaism, Christianity and Islam. What the Bible does tell us about the
Jerusalem of that future time (before the second coming) is revealed in the
book of Revelation. And what is revealed gives us an unbelievable glance
into the conditions at Jerusalem at that future time.

In that day Jerusalem will be a "great
city" in this present evil world and a global center of religious
worship, commerce and political power. It will be a corrupt place where
religious authorities (much like the Pharisees and Sanhedrin of olden days)
rule over and suppress the poor and persecute the truly righteous. And once
again the sins of Jerusalem and the world will cause the Lord God to rise up
and send prophets to Jerusalem, preaching repentance and that the Kingdom of
Heaven is at hand; the very same message of John the Baptist and Elijah (see
Matthew 17:10-11 & Mark 9:11-12). Two of those coming prophets are killed by
the rulers of the city:

"And their dead bodies shall lie in the street
of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also
our Lord was crucified."(Revelation 11:8 KJV)

The Jerusalem of the future, in this present evil
world system, is likened unto Sodom and Egypt, which tells you of the level
of depravity and hardship being endured in the great city at that future
time.

In Old Testament prophecy, cities like Jerusalem are
spoken of as women, and usually in less than flattering terms when the Lord
God is angry with them:

"Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is
none to comfort her: the LORD hath commanded concerning Jacob, that his
adversaries should be round about him: Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman
among them."(Lamentations 1:17 KJV)

It is a popular belief in the fundamental protestant
school of prophecy that Papal Rome and the Catholic Church system somehow
comes to power in the end times, and that Rome is the identity of the "woman"
spoken of in Revelation as riding the beast:

"And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst
thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast
that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns. The beast that
thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and
go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose
names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world,
when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is. And here is the
mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven
mountains, on which the woman sitteth."(Revelation 17:7-9 KJV)

Since the city of Rome is situated on seven hills, a
phrase commonly associated with the city of Rome, they interpret this
passage to be pointing to the Roman Catholic Church of Rome. Therefore, they
believe that Rome is "BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS." (See
Revelation 17:5) They further justify this identification based on this
verse:

"And he saith unto me, The waters which thou
sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations,
and tongues.(Revelation 17:15 KJV)

Reasoning that the Catholic Church has over a
billion members in all countries across the world, and since the Catholic
Church claims to be the "True Church" of the Apostles, then this could be
none other than Rome the Bible is speaking of in Revelation. They then cite
this verse as further justification:

"And the woman which thou sawest is that great
city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth."(Revelation 17:18 KJV)

The interpreters claiming that the Catholic Church
rules the politics of many countries on the Earth. They then make the point
that the Vatican is a sovereign "State" apart from Italy, and that the "Holy
See" has its own embassies and diplomatic status around the world. All these
things are true, except this identification of Rome as the "woman" riding
the beast of Revelation does not exactly pass the rightly-divided Biblical
smell test. And here is why:

Yes, Rome is a city that sits on seven hills, but so
does the cities of Istanbul, Turkey (formerly Constantinople) and Jerusalem
(and for that matter, so does Cincinnati, Ohio). HOWEVER, Jerusalem is
specifically referred to as the "great city" in the book of Revelation, not
Rome...

"And their dead bodies shall lie in the street
of the great city, which spiritually is
called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was
crucified."(Revelation 11:8 KJV)

...and is proclaimed by the Scriptures to be the
true whore of Babylon:

"And the great city
was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great
Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine
of the fierceness of his wrath."(Revelation 16:19 KJV)

"And upon her forehead was a name written,
MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE
EARTH."(Revelation 17:5 KJV)

The Bible tells us that Jerusalem, not Rome, is the
true "whore" of Revelation. In the future Jerusalem, the City of Peace will
be the city of a great false peace. It will be a center of power much like
ancient Babylon and will once again go a whoring as she did so many times in
Old Testament days. At this future time Israel will have abandoned its
current democratic form of government and will once again be a theocratic
monarchy, ruled by kings and ruling with the kings of the earth. Now, I know
that you may find this to be shocking and hard to believe. After all, we all
think of Jerusalem as the heart of the holy land and the place where the
Lord Jesus Christ will someday reign (and He will), but not before He
avenges Himself on the city that rejected the Lamb of God and nailed Him to
a tree outside the city walls.

How do we know for sure that Jerusalem is the
"woman" spoken of? Consider this undeniable truth: In the Bible God says
that Babylon, the mother of harlots, is responsible for shedding specific
holy blood:

"And in her was found the blood of
prophets, and of saints, and of all that
were slain upon the earth."(Revelation 18:24 KJV)

And the only city on the face of the Earth that
meets those criteria, according to the Bible, is the city of Jerusalem:

"Nevertheless I must walk to day, and to
morrow, and the day following: for it cannot be
that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem."(Luke 13:33 KJV)

And that is the verse of Scripture that nails the
woman's identity. Jesus Himself said this. And Jesus, who was also a
prophet, was slain at Jerusalem. In fact, search your Bible and you will
find that EVERY true prophet of the Lord God who perished did so at
Jerusalem.

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which
killest the prophets, and stonest them
that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children
together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!(Luke 13:34 KJV)

I know that some of you will find this revelation
troubling. That is understandable, since we know that God has not finished
dealing with or completely forsaken the children of Israel. Paul testified
to this truth:

"For I would not, brethren, that ye should be
ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that
blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles
be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall
come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:
For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As
concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the
election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes. For the gifts and calling
of God are without repentance." (Romans 11:25-29 KJV)

Before God saves the Jewish remnant, they must be
brought to repentance and their eyes must be opened. What happens at
Jerusalem in the future is how He brings that about. (See Romans 2:4 & Hosea
3:5)

There is another corner stone prophecy in the book
of Daniel that you should study:

"Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people
and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of
sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting
righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the
most Holy. Know therefore and understand, [that] from the going forth of the
commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the
Messiah the Prince [shall be] seven weeks,
and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall,
even in troublous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be
cut off, but not for himself: and the people of
the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;
and the end thereof [shall be] with a flood, and unto the end of the war
desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for
one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the
oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make
[it] desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be
poured upon the desolate."(Daniel 9:24-27 KJV)

There are two (2) "princes" spoken of in this
passage. There is "Messiah the Prince" (a reference to Jesus - note that the
"P" in prince is capitalized in your KJB). Then there is the "prince of the
people that shall come." This is not Jesus, but another prince (the
Antichrist) and the passage is speaking of Jerusalem in the future. (Notice
the "p" of this latter prince is not capitalized in the KJB.) Also notice
the mention of the "holy covenant" which could be a peace deal between the
Jews and the Arabs that we mentioned previously.

The seventy weeks are seventy times seven years, or
490 years. This is the sum total of time God has determined for dealing with
Jerusalem. This includes the time from history past (after the Babylonian
captivity), up until the future day of the second coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ and His anointing as the King of Kings. As you can see right off the
bat, it has been over 2400 years since these seventy weeks of prophecy
started, and they are not yet completed. And this is where the "gap" of the
Church Age enters the picture. The prophetic clock was stopped for the
duration of the Church Age.

"Know therefore and understand, [that] from the
going forth of the commandment to restore
and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince [shall be] seven weeks,
and threescore and two weeks:"

In researching this particular prophecy, I have
found that the interpretations of who gave this "commandment
to restore and to build Jerusalem" and exactly when it was given, is
not a fully settled historical or theological issue. It is outside the scope
of this book to comment on the matter, in depth, but I will share with you
one of my own observations.

I found a wee bit of a complication in computing
this time. In the above verse it says there will be 69 weeks of years until
"Messiah the Prince" (Jesus) "seven
weeks, and threescore and two weeks" = 69 weeks, one week short of
70. But in a following passage it says that that "after
threescore and two weeks" (62 weeks) "shall
Messiah be cut off, but not for himself" This latter clause is
understood to be when Jesus was crucified for the sins of the world. So what
happened to the "seven weeks" mentioned
before?

In other words, the passages are saying two
different things. In one it says that a total of 69 weeks until "Messiah
the Prince" and the other says 62 weeks up to the point where "Messiah
be cut off" (the crucifixion). This tells me that these events are
not the same. There remains another seven weeks (49) years that must come
after the crucifixion, in addition to the one week (7 years) of the future
great tribulation period.

One could argue that these 49 years cover the
transition periods at the beginning and end of the Church Age. A better
suggestion is that the time of the coming of "Messiah
the Prince" which happens after "seven
weeks, and threescore and two weeks" could be speaking of the return
of Jesus to gather his Bride at the Rapture of the Church. That would
coincide exactly with the start of the last week (seven years) of the
tribulation. And that would make sense because until the King is actually
crowned ("and to anoint the most Holy"),
He is still technically a Prince.

Could it be that these 49 years have something to do
with the vision of the Ram and the first of the 10 kings? Could it be that
the 49 years begin when the Jews start to rebuild the Temple? Could those 49
years (7 times 7 years) have something to do with a certain Jubilee? (See
Leviticus 25)

"And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years
unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of
years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the
trumpet of the jubile to sound on the
tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of
atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land."(Leviticus 25:8-9 KJV)

Surely the prophecy of the Jubilee ("Jubile") and
the end-times are related.

"But of that day and that hour knoweth no man,
no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is. For the Son
of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave
authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the
porter to watch."(Mark 13:32-34 KJV)

The fullness of the Gentiles has just about come in
and the Lord God will once again turn His mercy to unbelieving Israel and
save them. But in order to do that, a great time of testing and punishment
is still ahead for His chosen people. He will bring them to repentance at
Jerusalem, which is 'Ground Zero' for the Great Tribulation. Our Bible tells
us that the resurgence of the Persian Empire is only the beginning of the
end. The Ram will soon begin pushing its influence northward, southward and
westward; there will be more wars and conflict in the Middle East region
before the end.

The daily news is filled with ever increasing
concern about Iran's nuclear ambitions. Will Iran build a nuclear bomb? Will
they use it? Will the Israelis preemptively attack in an attempt to stop
them? The major western powers (the U.S. and Europe) are currently working
to pressure Iran to cease nuclear fuel production through economic
sanctions. The Russians and China, who derive wealth and commerce resources
from doing business with Iran, are resisting such economic sanctions.
Meanwhile, the rulers of the Iranian government, a hard line Islamic regime
that has publically declared it is hell-bent on destroying the nation of
Israel, will not stop their march towards development of nuclear weapons.
Diplomatic efforts will eventually fail. There is a nuclear showdown
approaching between Middle Eastern and Western civilizations.

In closing, consider this: In the book of
Revelation, just after John hears the "trumpet"
and is caught up to heaven (a prophetic event that has been equated by many
to be a "type" reference to the future "Rapture" of the Church, (see
Revelation 4:1), we read this passage:

"And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the
seals, and I heard, as it were the
noise of thunder, one of the four beasts
saying, Come and see."(Revelation 6:1 KJV KJV)

John describes hearing something that sounded
similar to thunder just before the opening events of the Great Tribulation
begin to unfold on the Earth. Could it be that what John heard was a
Nuclear Explosion?

The Book of Daniel is unsealing. Read it, and get
understanding!

It is my prayer that you will search the Scriptures,
and rightly-divide them, to see what things are true and honest. TRUST YOUR
BIBLE!

In the final chapter that follows, we are going to
show you more reasons why the old Holy Bible King James Translation is
worthy of your trust.